A Researcher's Perspective on Current Events

Religion

December 28, 2009

I hope everyone had a festive and restful holiday—and I hope most of you reading are actually still on break through the New Year.

In keeping with the Christmas/holiday spirit (and Laura’s “what do we believe in?” blog entries from last week) I thought I’d touch on the differences in what we believe in now, as we close 2009, compared to 4 years ago.

According to the Harris Poll, while we are still just as likely to believe in God now as we were in 2005 (82%), for the most part, it seems we have become slightly more likely to say we believe in other aspects of religion and spirituality since then…but why? Here are my two cents regarding the uptick in Americans’ spiritual beliefs (using pop-culture/current event-related happenings from 2009 to help explain the rise, of course).

Percentage point difference in what we believe (since 2005):

Heaven (+5) With so many notable celebrities passing in 2009, Heaven suddenly became a much more entertaining venue.

Not all religious/spiritual entities that people believe in have risen since 2005, though. In fact, the percentage of Americans’ who believe in witches is down 5 percentage points. But hey, that’s easily explainable…haven’t you heard? Witches are out—vampires are IN.

Okay, okay…so these pop culture-related events probably (definitely) have nothing to do with Americans becoming slightly more likely to believe in particular religious ideas/truths. But really, why are we a bit more likely to say we believe, nowadays? Are we more spiritually-minded in harder times? Or just hopeful for the future?

Actually, it appears that not much has changed about our religious beliefs over the past few years. We are just as likely to believe in God as we were back in 2006 (P.O. – pre-Obama). Today, a large majority of U.S. adults (82%) believe in God (the exact same percentage as four years ago, in fact), and most are 100% certain that he or she exists (59%).

But beyond that, there appears to be little consensus about what God looks like – is he male (38%), is she female (1%), or possibly neither (34%) or both (11%)?

And what does God do with his or her time? Perhaps:

Allows us Earthlings to make our own mistakes by observing but not intervening (which might explain why Tiger Woods is no longer our hero) – according to 50%;

(or)

Controls what we do all of the time (which might justify my son’s inexplicable decision to support the Jacksonville Jaguars despite having zero connection to the Sunshine State) – according to 29%;

(or)

Neither controls nor observes our behavior (which makes sense to me… the God with a remote and a Snuggie and a bucket of popcorn. That’s surely the God I would be. I wonder who he/she was rooting for on SYTYCD) – according to 6%

And here is my other one point of note on this latest Harris Poll: more women than men think God is a man…but why? Perhaps all his intervention during the Super Bowl, but not for Desperate Housewives.

December 22, 2009

Based on a recent Harris Poll, we find that U.S. adults today are almost as likely to believe in Creationism (40%) as in Darwin’s theory of evolution (45%).

And while I wrote in February that it is possible for intelligent people to hold two seemingly inconsistent points of view (reference any study about freedom of speech), I am taking an educated guess here that there is little (or no?) overlap in the Venn Diagram of these two groups. And I offer again that much of the public remains confused as a sizeable 20-30% say they are just not sure about either theory. So I punt the question to educators and policy makers about how we teach our children when we ourselves aren’t sure of the answer or can’t agree.

Another interesting point of the poll is that, regardless of how pragmatic (some might say cynical) we are, many of us remain open to beliefs that are unproven by science. Most of us are optimistic that there is some deeper meaning or mystery to our world, including how we live our lives right now and what happens to us after we die. As evidenced by this Harris Poll, most adults believe in the following (all more so than Darwin’s theory):

December 11, 2009

71% of teens today say that their religious beliefs are important to them. --- Good Intentions: The Beliefs and Values of Teens and Tweens Today, commissioned by the Girl Scouts of America and conducted using online and school-based techniques between October 2, 2008 and January 23, 2009, among a national sample of 3,263 students—boys and girls in grades 3 through 12, both in and out of Girl Scouting

February 26, 2009

According to The Harris Poll from back in December, 23% of U.S. adults consider themselves to be very religious (not just run-of-the-mill religious, but very religious) and 15% say not at all – and everyone else falls somewhere in between.

And, this hasn’t changed significantly over the past year, so at least there is something that remains untouched by our crash-and-burn economy.

But despite our viewpoint that we are a very or somewhat religious people (so say 68% of us), only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they attend religious services at least once per month (27% go every week or more often). So, either our actions belie our words – or we are finding other non-traditional places to pray. Probably both.

The majority of the U.S. also believes that most (if not all) of the Old and New Testaments represent the strict “word of God” (55% and 54% respectively). Whereas, only a minority say the same about the Koran (9%), the Book of Mormon (10%) and the Torah (26% - uh, hello, people, this is a subset of the Old Testament that 54% of you said was the word of God above).

I realize this approximates the demographic composition of our country… and point of fact, the percentages for the Torah, Koran, and Book of Mormon above are actually higher than the respective incidences of Jews, Muslims and Mormons in the U.S., so there are several folks – but not many – who believe that other religious work (besides that of the religion they subscribe to) can stand for the word of God. But these folks are few and far between…

So, if we are a generally religious (though not necessarily devout) country and the majority of us accept only our “books” as divine, this has potentially profound implications for how we view the world – and how the world views us. And, this insularity may impede our chance of mediating peace in regions where the religious viewpoint is vastly different than our own… if (and this is a big if)…. we elect leaders who we believe share our point of view and we want our popular opinion on religion to shape our foreign policy.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe that religion is the basis for most of our international conflicts – or just getting the blame for other land, economic and lifestyle disputes? And if we historically “require” our president to be a Christian, can and do we expect that he will separate his personal self from his professional self (and promote a religion-free foreign policy)?

Nearly one-third of U.S. adults (32%) believe the Bible is the actual word of God to be taken literally word for word.--- commissioned by GLAAD and conducted by telephone between November 13 and 17, 2008 among 2,008 U.S. adults

February 25, 2009

All signs at Harris suggest I should back away slowly from this next post because behind the scenes, we are agreeing to disagree on the interpretation. So, I begin the post today by saying I look forward to your thoughts either in the comments or privately via email…

According to the results of a new BBC World News America/Harris Poll, 45% of adults say they believe humans were created directly by God… and only 29% say humans evolved from other species.

But before drawing a conclusion from that stat, hold up because… 53% say they believe Charles Darwin’s theory that “plants, animals and other human beings have evolved over time”. And when asked outright in December, “do you believe in evolution?”, 47% say yes, compared to 40% for creationism.

And on almost all of these questions, quite a few people openly admit that they are just “not sure”.

So, all that appears to be clear is that it’s not all that clear to us – either many people don’t understand the issue entirely… or do, but feel like there’s not a straight answer.

I might add that it is not uncommon for well-educated adults to hold consistently two seemingly inconsistent points of view. For example, polls have shown that many people support freedom of speech as in the first amendment, but also favor banning the expression of certain opinions, of which they strongly disapprove. And, the same is true for questions about the separation of church and state and other sections in the Bill Of Rights.

But if that’s true in this case, then how do we teach our kids about the development of human beings as parents and educators? Well, 40% of U.S. adults believe that both evolution and creationism should be taught side-by-side in the school system (23% say Darwin’s theory of evolution only; 17% say creationism only; and 11% say neither).

So now… what do you think as a parent? a teacher? a policy-maker? a citizen?

February 24, 2009

We are such a technology-driven society… with our iPhones and our iPods and our e-communities. But as much as science/technology have radically transformed our lives, we (including I) seem to have a love-hate – read: co-dependent – relationship with one of our core disciplines.

We love it when it expands our reach and level of connection with our friends, but not when that ex-boyfriend “friends” us through Facebook. And, we love it when it helps us master (AKA speak eloquently at a cocktail party about) the world around us, but not when it calls into question the things we fervently believe.

Americans still remain unconvinced that there is a scientific explanation for everything. Most of us (and I use the term “us” loosely here… as a career researcher, I ordinarily choose non-fiction over fiction and The Daily Show over Lost) are still open to very un-scientific ways of thinking and are optimistic that there is some deeper meaning or mystery or magic to our world and how we live our lives now (and after we die).

According to a December Harris Poll, the majority of U.S. adults say they believe in… God (80%); miracles (75%); heaven (73%); angels (71%); survival of the soul after death (68%); hell (62%); the Virgin birth (61%) and the devil (59%).

And all of these significantly more than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (47%). So, more tomorrow on the hotly contested issue of evolution vs. creationism…